


The Voice of Hope

by thecolourclear (afinch)



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, discussions of character death, though I'm not sure Joanie counts as a character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-05
Updated: 2006-08-05
Packaged: 2018-11-07 12:28:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11058999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afinch/pseuds/thecolourclear
Summary: A game of hide and seek.A fire.A scared little boy, running away.An older sister, desperate to find her brother amidst the flames.Only one of them came out of the house alive.It's a weight Josh has carried nearly his whole life; it has formed his career choice and defined his family, hollowly, until their deaths. As Josh takes his son to lay stones, maybe an act of grief can finally open the door for healing.





	The Voice of Hope

It is thick, heavy and choking. They are just playing hide and seek. He has a terrific hiding spot, but the smell forces him out. Had he known what he would walk into, he would have stayed hidden; he can't see anything in front of him. Panic overtakes him and he begins to scream – and quickly cough. He struggles for a few moments, his tiny body shakes with fear, before he uses the wall as a guideline and slowly makes his way down the hall. He is looking for – 

_Joanie? Joanie where are you? Joanie, help!_

– Air.

He can feel it, somewhere. He turns around, confused, before he sees it again. There, the door. Maybe he only imagined feeling it. He jumps up to grab the knob and turns in a full circle, standing in the open doorway as – 

_Joanie! Joanie!_

–- a slight breeze wafts through and the living room flares up. 

Terrified, Josh wakes with a start.

A dream. Just another dream. This was time he is certain something had moved in the shadows before the breeze – before the fire flared across everything. Joanie. She had been there, watching him open the door. She had been about to dash across to him, he was certain of it. And he had run away. 

***

How do you live with the knowledge that you've killed your sister? If he hadn't opened the door. If he'd stayed inside. If he hadn't run away. If. He wouldn't have had to watch his mother desperately cling to some vain attempt at holding everyone together – even if just as fragments. He wouldn't have had to watch his father's sudden darkness, plunging the house into – 

_Joanie? He is certain he hears her, somewhere in the night. But it is only a shadow. He knows his wife is frustrated. He knows little Josh thinks it was somehow his fault though his poor son cannot understand all of it. The image of Josh's hand on the casket as he looked up at him questioningly, haunts him forever. He thinks maybe if he hadn't accompanied his wife shopping that day, for a new kitchen rug, (how trivial it now seemed) Joanie would be alive and there would be no shadows for him to chase in the quiet of the night._

– silence. His father had fallen so far into himself that no one – not even G-d – could save him. A trait decades later Josh was dangerously close to inheriting. Back then, back when there had possibly been a hope for his innocence, Josh had thrown himself into school; it was the only way to escape the hell home had become for him. 

He was just a boy. Josh shakes his head. He’d been just a boy. He was stupid. He was lost. He’d been lost in that house for decades. Lost in a tomb.

***

He takes a deep breath against the nightmare, finally daring to close his eyes. He is just on the brink of unconsciousness when his cell phone vibrates and the – 

_shrill, cutting ring slices through the air. Joanie glances wildly around the room, screaming for her little brother. It wasn't a joke, they'd been playing hide and seek, and she smells it before she sees it. Now, she needs her brother. She dashes from room to room calling for the little boy, choking against the smoke. He is nowhere. And she needs to breathe; she stumbles over to a window and struggles to get it open, fumbling with the latch. Her finger slips, she screams – the thick smoke fills her lungs. She will rest. Just for a second. Just for a small second she will rest. She closes her eyes._

 

*****

 

It was another moment of a nightmare, this time Josh was at his desk. He had no idea what time or what day it is. There was a note from Donna on the door saying she went out with that loser almost boyfriend of hers and that he looks cute when he drools. 

If only she knew what happened when he slept. Josh shook his head. No. He did not want her pity – he didn't want anyone's. 

He struggles as the firefighter places the mask over his face; once he has taken a few precious breaths of oxygen, he tries to pull the mask off. He vaguely remembers the other firefighter screaming that he'd found a body. After that, he cannot remember anything – at the word body he'd slipped into unconsciousness. 

He can't remember the ambulance ride, or much of the stay at the hospital. The most finite thing he remembers is his father's arms wrapped around him, just holding him, whispering delicate words of sorrow and love. 

He wanted his father in that moment, those calloused hands reaching around his frame to protect him. Protect him from himself. It was the last time Noah really hugged his son, in that sickly white hospital hallway. After that, Josh only remembers how his father pushed him away with every display of affection he tried to show. When his mother would glare at Noah, he would accept a kiss – and nothing more – from his son with a soft grunt. 

Josh shook his head. It was stupid to wish for things that could never be and to look badly on the things that had been. Not all of the memories of his father were bad. There was the funeral, and while the images of his dead daughter and her weeping friends haunted Noah to his dying day, after the coldest of nightmares Josh would wake and think of his father on that day – how a little boy managed to see the strength that all little boys find in their father. Josh had seen his father while he comforted teenage girls too grief-struck to form any words – not even 'I'm sorry'. For the few that could apologise, Noah would hug them tighter and tell them they had nothing to be sorry for. Noah never cried once, and Josh, watching quietly from behind the rows of potted plants and flowers, thought his father a small sort of hero. He tried his hardest not to cry that day, trying to draw strength from his father.

Now Josh stared around the dark office and wondered what it was now he could draw his strength from. There wasn't anyone he trusted enough to call at that moment – not even Donna. Just a memo on big tobacco. Deciding that would have to be good enough, Josh pulled it towards him and began to read. 

 

*****

 

It was this time of year that drove Josh insane; the contrast of the searing hot memories with the bitter cold. Leo knew, Toby knew, the rest just assumed it was Roslyn coming back to haunt him. Everyone had their own demons and Josh didn't want to add more to theirs with his. With his guilt. Decades later and he couldn't explain why he was still alive. Dreams that he had no control over plagued him day after day. It was the way his life had been since seven. Since the day he had realised his sister really wasn't coming home. 

_Daddy?_

_Josh?_

_When's Joanie coming home?_

Josh struggled with tears and tapped his fisted hand lightly on the desk. He was not going to let these sleepy memories in the corner of his mind haunt him now. There was too much to be done, too many other people to love. 

Leo had knocked at the door then, seeming to understand. He knew the day, Toby knew the event. Toby was probably intelligent enough to guess – he'd been nothing but nice to Josh the whole day. And today, after the week of nightmares, Josh was welcoming of the strange behaviour. Donna, for her part, was trying to get at the truth. She was trying to understand how he could be so obstinate about something so pliable. 

But she didn't have that loss. She didn't have that survivor's guilt. She'd never had to survive anything similar, after all. Leo had survived more than his fair share of stuff, and yet, he had that soft spot for the boy who killed his sister. That was how Josh saw it, at least. Leo more saw it as a little boy forced to grow up too fast. Leo'd had his own version of growing up too fast. And as for Toby and his quiet way of understanding without really understanding? 

_I'd do anything to have a father who was a felon or a sister with a past_

There really wasn't much more to understand than that. Toby had gone home that night and thought for a long time. Tried to look at life though Josh's eyes. And when he was done thinking about it, he decided he liked the way the bitter cold swirled through his beard, and the simple comfort just stepping outside brought. 

It was the opposite for Josh. Josh hated the first step into the bitter cold. After the first step, it was okay. The first step – when the wind was swirling Toby right – brought too many memories. From the warmth to the cold. Most nights Josh would go home and try to forget everything so he wouldn't have to remember anything. Most nights it didn't work. 

 

*****

 

Sometime he imagines what it would have been like if Joanie had survived and he hadn't. Morbid, yes, but that house had become a tomb and if it wasn't Joanie's, it was his. She would have that survivor's guilt, yes, but she would not let it consume her. He only has his seven-year-old memories of her, but he knows she was far stronger than he is now. She'd already survived her first real heartbreak at that time, the staggering pain of unrequited love. She had been fourteen. 

She would have had more love, blossoming love, sweet gooey teenage love. She would have married fast, Josh decided. She would have married fast and settled into being whatever she wanted to be. She wanted to be a mother first however, Josh knew. Sometimes, when he absolutely knew there was no chance of anyone finding out, he would cry about the children she never had. Of the future he'd robbed from her. 

She would never stop referring to her forever seven-year-old brother as 'Joshie' not even after she left high school -- the joys and the pains and the heartache and the laughter of it all. She had only experienced four months of it. Four terribly short months of it all. She would have loved it, going out for drama, or maybe a sport. She could run -- just not when it mattered. 

Josh shook his head. She would have juggled both and joined track, maybe doing the winter play. She would have kept up her studies, and while not graduating with high honours, she would graduate with a decent GPA. She would have been accepted to a good college, but she would have picked the one closest to home. She'd want to stay close to her parents after all. 

Then, after a few years in college, she'd meet a boy. There would be a wedding. Then … children. His parents would claim the title of grandparents. It would redeem the plunging darkness of Noah and lift his mother from the grey fog that enveloped her. 

 

And everyone would be happy.

 

*****

 

Those were the worst dreams, the dreams of the other future. He woke in a cold sweat this time. Elijah. Her first child. He pulled the covers tighter over his head, wishing he could be rid of it – rid of Joanie. 

_Joanie._

He wasn't surprised that nothing answered. There was no simple stirring of dust bunnies. Her voice had been lost for so long and there was no bringing her back. He had lost her like he had lost his father – he had lost her before he had lost his father. Two lives. Two faults. Tomorrow he would come face to face with that guilt again. Tomorrow he would take his mother's hand and again fail to say the words – he would make his mother mumble them and they would leave without placing the stones. 

 

It has always happened this way. 

 

*****

 

And so the years passed, and Josh dealt with dreams and life and regrets. 

Today was a balmy spring day and Josh – no longer youthful – had brought his seven year old son to the cemetery.

"You walk slow!" Little Jonathon Noah Lyman calls after his father as they walk the rows of grey headstones. Josh hasn't been here since the afternoon they buried his mother, thirteen months ago. It was Jonathon who insisted on coming, because he wanted to lay stones. Josh's in-laws had said they would take him, but Josh refused; it was something he was going to have to face. His wife had offered to come as well, lend some support, but he had refused for the same reason as refusing his in-laws. Toby had volunteered, offering to take Huck and Molly along as well. Even Donna and CJ had offered once they caught wind of what Josh was planning to do. Josh had remained firm – no one was taking Jon but him. It had to be that way. His therapist agreed and had tried to coax Josh into looking at it as a learning experience. 

Josh shakes his head, they were at the gravestones and the sight of his mother's headstone sends jolts through him – he has not been to look upon it since it was uncovered the previous month. Someone has been tending it, however, placing flowers and a few small stones. Josh suspects it has been Toby, though he knows if he calls his old friend, there will be nothing but denial.

Jonathon seems transfixed by them too, holding the three small pebbles tightly in his hands. "That's where Grandma is?" he asks quietly, and Josh only nods, staring transfixed at the first gravestone, the one marked Joanie. The headstone which marks death at only fourteen years and two months after her birth. 

"I only know a little of the prayers," Jonathon says, voice trembling. "Uncle Toby said He would understand if I didn't know them." Yet his eyes still look to his father for confirmation. He transfers all three stones to one hand and reaches for his fathers hand to hold, "Will you say them with me?"

"No, you go ahead," Josh whispers as he takes his son hand, afraid his voice will crack if he dares to speak louder. "He will understand." 

Jonathon nods and mumbles through the prayers as best he can. When he is done he drops his father's hand and takes two steps tentatively towards the headstones, looking back over his shoulder for approval. 

"You're fine," Josh whispers, still staring at Joanie's headstone. _Blessed Daughter, Loving Sister_ , it reads, and decades of guilt swell up in Josh once more. The wind shifts then, just enough for his son's words to filter back to him. 

"I miss you Gramma, but Daddy says you're still with me." He moves to the next headstone and Josh takes a step back, faltering – he had not realised his son had brought three stones. It was not what he had expected when Jon had asked to go see the unveiled headstone. One stone. That was all he had been counting on. He could have handled one stone. 

"And I never met you, but you were my grandpa, and Gramma said I'm the spitting image of you and that I should place stones if Daddy ever took me." Josh isn't sure – he has not practiced in ages – what the customs for placing stones are supposed to be. Toby would know. He thinks he remembers that there is supposed to be silence, but the soft whisper of his son's name is brushed back to him with the wind. He wants to reach forward and yank the little boy away from the final headstone, but he is rooted in place – terrified. 

"Daddy and Gramma never talk about you, and Mommy says you make them sad, but I wish you were my aunt –" he hesitates, holds the stone precariously in his fingertips before placing it on the headstone and slowly standing. He takes a step back, then another. 

Josh lets out a dry sob and closes the gap between the two of them, placing a hand on Jon's shoulder and turning him back to the car. Jon does not object. 

"What was she like?" he asks quietly, peering into the tear stained face of his father. After a long pause, in which both father and son enter the car and start to drive aimlessly home, Jon adds, "It's ok. You don't have to answer. I know you miss her like I miss Gramma."

When they arrive home, Jon says nothing to his mother, just quietly goes upstairs to change his clothes. Josh does the same thing. After he sits on the edge of the bed for half an hour while he cries, he gets up and rummages through the closet. Finding what he is looking for, he knocks gently on the door to his son's room and hands Jon a photo album. 

"This is what she was like," he says softly and Jon takes the album, quietly flipping through the pages.

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Amy, and for the hope of your own peace.


End file.
